


Eternity Encased

by yonnna



Category: Baccano!
Genre: Gen, complete nonsense, elmer climbing tall things as always, elmer getting hurt as always, gee phil how come your mom lets you have like 4 dads, victor makes a very brief annoyed cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 04:22:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11200353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yonnna/pseuds/yonnna
Summary: The immortals bring Phil on a trip to the National Museum of Natural history. Nile and Elmer stir up trouble, Denkurō considers the patterns of natural life, and Sylvie recalls old lullabies.





	Eternity Encased

It is brick and marble for as far as she can see; gray and white, gleaming like snow in the soft yellow glow of the lights overhead. She presses up on the tips of her toes to catch a glimpse of something more over the crowd, and when she cannot make herself tall enough she cranes her neck in every direction to catch one _through_ it. Just a glimpse, just a hint, just _something_ , anything, _more_. 

Phil has seen enough of gray and white to last a lifetime. Elmer had told her on the way here that there would be sea creatures and birds and dinosaurs —

“ _Dinosaurs? I reckon you’ll like them!_ ” he had told her; he had been flicking through photographs on his phone while she sat beside him peering over at the screen. Miles away, another one of her had been sat in the backroom of a bar with a dark-haired boy who grinned wryly to say, “ _They’re even older than we are. They’re all dead now, but I guess the best way to describe them is… they were monsters,_ ” — here his dry amusement had dwindled, replaced with something a bit more childish — _“Elmer probably doesn’t want to scare you by telling you this, but they’ve got sharp teeth and huge claws, and —”_

Her eyes had went wide then, every set of them, but the _her_ on the metro heard Elmer chuckle to himself and saw him bear his own teeth in a wide grin. _“— The biggest smiles! They’ve got the biggest smiles in the whole world!”_

Sea creatures and birds, and dinosaurs, and the biggest smiles in the world, and — what else had he mentioned?

“ _Mammoths! How do I put this…”_ They had been two stops away from their destination at the time, and in Manhattan Czes had shrugged, indifferent — “ _They’re not that different from elephants.”_ But on the metro Elmer had given her a little nudge and an enthusiastic hum, “ _They’re_ like _elephants but… hm, fuzzier. Imagine an elephant teddy bear! Yeah, that’s it!”_

 _“What’s an elephant?”_ she had asked Czes.

 _“Remember_ Dumbo _?_ _That movie Elmer made us watch?”_

_“Oh… uh-huh.”_

— And her imagining had been thus: fuzzy, flying elephant, like a teddy bear, no bigger than she is. _Mammoth_.

She had not asked Elmer if the _real_ ones can fly. She does not think they can, but she does not think he would have told her if they cannot — and there had been some thrill in the concept of discovering a truth for herself, _by_ herself.

It is disheartening that all she has discovered so far is the dizzying height of the ceiling and the noise that a crowd can produce.

The rain seems to have ushered the whole world inside this one building. Her line of vision is all marble and brick and throngs of shivering people with pale lips and raincoats, dark and drenched and heavy, and dull and gray and white and — brick and marble. She wants to see the elephants. She wants to see the mammoths. She wants to see the dinosaurs.

If Elmer lifted her onto his shoulders there would be nothing in the world out of her sight —

But Elmer is preoccupied and she cannot interrupt him. Arguing — no, not arguing. Elmer does not _argue_. He is _speaking_ to Nile and Nile is _arguing_ back.

“What if we close our eyes? It only has to be for a few seconds.”

He rings out his soaked jacket with a twist of his wrists. His bones _click_ and water splatters over the floor to wash away his muddy footprints. A gust of wind hits his back when the door parts to let in a group of tourists, and they chatter happily as they pass him. He shivers and he laughs. Nile does neither.

“I say this: you are a fool to even ask.” 

His mask smiles but his voice betrays that he is frowning. He tilts his head to look Elmer in the face and rainwater drips from his hair to stain the wood with angry streaks. The two do not move for a long moment; Elmer grinning, chin up, and Nile glaring him down with aura alone.

“This one must admit that Master Elmer makes a reasonable request,” comes Denkurō’s calm voice.

Sylvie sighs, then nods, then purses her lips at the dampened tangle of hair which falls in her eyes as a result. She pushes it out of her face with her hand — made a near ghostly white by the cold, a quiet contrast to the darkened silver — and nods again.

“For once,” she agrees. The line of Denkurō’s mouth softens, but Elmer beats him to a smile. 

“See, even Sylvie thinks so!” he says. He is very loud for a museum, but not very loud for Elmer. “And y’know — _you know what?_ It’s been way too long since I’ve seen your real smile, anyway.”

“I say this: you have _never_ seen my real smile,” says Nile. He is very loud, too; not as loud as Elmer, but with an element of force that Elmer lacks.

“Nope! Not yet —”

“And mark my words: you never shall.”

“Wow, you almost sounded like Huey just th— ghhrk—”

Shoes squeak against the wet floor as Nile lunges to grab Elmer by his collar. He holds him in a vice grip a foot off the floor, fingers curled so tight that they twitch with excess energy, but Elmer makes no attempt to fight back. He lets himself hang limply, and, though his expression had been strained a second earlier, it now looks almost serene.

“Damn you, Elmer. I say this: damn you if you think you can compare me to that fiend —”

“’Come on, now! ‘Fiend’ is only one letter away from ‘friend’!”

The hand at his collar clenches tighter, nails digging into the base of his neck. He winces, but the corners of his lips never drop. 

“How old are you two?” Sylvie sneers, face scrunched up in disdain. Her tone is refined as the polished stone beneath her feet, but her words are concrete: “Stop fighting. You’re setting a bad example for Phil.” 

“Mistress Sylvie, it’s —” before she is able to assure that _it’s alright, there’s no need to worry_ , Phil’s small voice is cut off by one much bolder.

“Is there a problem here?”

The security guard is a tall woman, though not _exceptionally_ so. She looks down her nose at she and Sylvie but has to tip her head back to meet Nile’s shadowy eyes.

“This imbecile tells me that I must remove my mask if I wish to pass through here,” says Nile in a low grumble. He shoves Elmer down with a heavy _thump_ and throws his hand out to gesture. Ahead of them, other visitors file through screening devices, orderly — Phil has seen these before in airports. Sometimes they have to take off their shoes. Somehow _this_ is never a problem so long as masks are permissible.

The security guard sets her hands on her hips and furrows her brow, glancing briefly at the man on the floor and then away when he smiles.

“’That ‘imbecile’ is right, sir. It’s a security measure.”

Her voice is haughty and stern, but not aggressive. Nile’s, in response, is all three.

“I say this: I shall not bow to your demands.”

No sooner does Elmer get to his feet than he is pulled into the air again; not by his collar this time, and not with the same violent intent, but by his waist, then heaved over Nile’s shoulder in one swift movement.

“Listen, and listen well: you will soon see the error of your ways,” he assures, holding the woman’s stare for a long moment before he turns and strides away. At his back, Elmer waves. He laughs.

“We’ll meet up with you later!” he calls to them, chipper. “Bye Sylvie! Bye Den-Den! Bye Phil!”

They and their argument leave only muddy footprints in their wake, a shorter-lived storm than the one raging outside. Phil watches them depart with curiosity and concern, and just a _twang_ of envy — because they are off again to _see_ and _do_ and she is left staring at the floor _wishing_ she could rebel against the limits of her own world, all dull brick and endless marble and _waiting_.

She tugs at Sylvie’s sleeve.

“Where is Master Elmer going?”

“Hell if I know,” Sylvie mutters under her breath, tired and irritated, and not quiet enough for her to miss it. When she looks down at her her lips curl, and she says in a gentler tone, “Looks like they aren’t joining us today. I suppose,” — she shrugs — “We’ll just have to have fun without them, won’t we?”

Denkurō turns his head stiffly from Nile’s fading outline.

“This one apologises for Master Nile’s behavior.”

The apology could be directed towards the security guard, shaking her head dumbfounded as she takes her leave, but Sylvie is the one to respond.

“It’s not your job to make him behave.”

“This one supposes not, Dame Sylvie, yet — even so…”

He sighs. Sylvie sighs, too. Their sighs are the same and several octaves apart.

It is silent, then — the crowd surges around them, but in their bubble the three of them are silent. Phil speaks first.

“Mistress Sylvie, may we go see the dinosaurs first?”

Sylvie looks at her oddly and she quirks her head, tossing aside a clump of wet hair.

“The dinosaurs…?”

She nods, and feels her own expression brighten — proud to share the knowledge she has learned.

“Master Elmer said we should see them because they, um — have the biggest smiles in the world.”

 

* * *

 

“I say this: you are heavier than you look.”

“But you still gave it the good old college try! That’s the spirit!”

Having been dragged up the last stretch of the climb by grace of Nile’s strength and impatience — the feats they could accomplish when they worked in conjunction, these traits! — Elmer collapses like a rag doll against the low brick barrier separating him from a good eighty-foot fall. The museum’s architecture was not made for an easy ascent, and the rain has shown them no kindness on their way; his sleeve is soaked through when he scrambles for a grip on it, making several clumsy attempts to force his right arm back into place. There is a disjointed limpness to it that resists his best efforts. When he almost drives the bone through his skin, he decides it is not worth rushing.

“You dislocated more than a few bones, mind you, but hey, no one’s perfect,” he laughs, hunched over and cradling the injuries while he waits for them to heal of their own accord. “Super effort, really! Ten out of ten!”

There is no sarcasm in his tone; it rings with earnest joy. Nile can only groan and turn his back to him.

“Tell me, Elmer: do you _know_ how irritating your blabbering is? Is it a _choice_?” He does not give him time to answer. “Fortunately you are my ally in this venture, so I shall ignore it. I say this: I shall ignore it.”

He folds his arms over his chest and walks. A no-longer-wincing Elmer hops up to follow. His head turns slowly from side to side, looking out over the rooftop for a point of entry.

“Hmm hmmmmm —”

“I demand you cease humming.”

“But you said my _blabbering_ irritated you, right? Isn’t this better? Hmm?”

“No.”

“Besides,” he says, throwing his arms out to his sides and tipping his head back gleefully. His next words are through the sputtering of rainwater, “It’s a b-beautiful day, Nile! Doesn’t it just make you want to _sing_?”

“I say this: It is storming.”

“Rain makes the flowers grow! Florists collect the flowers and lovers buy them for each other, and then who do you think ends up smiling? Everyone! _Everyone_. The florists who get their money and the lovers who get their flowers and —”

“Lightning starts forest fires. Forest fires burn flowers. I say this: You are a fool.”

“But _forest fires_ make the _trees_ grow, and the trees…”

“Silence. No — I will ignore it. I say this: I will ignore it.”

His voice is leveled when he speaks. He takes a slow, deep breath —

And slams his foot into the metal of an air vent cover — _hard_. It falls through with a screech and a clank. Elmer claps his hands together and sings his agreement.

“Good thinking! We’ll just climb down there and —”

“Hm? Ah… yes, I see.” Nile pauses, then nods slowly. “My intention was merely to stave off the urge to end your life, but I say this, Elmer: you make a fine suggestion.”

He kneels to peer into the vent, still for a moment before he turns his head to Elmer and nods again, more confidently.

“I say this: it shall be claustrophobic, but it _should_ make do. How fortuitous.”

“If it gets too narrow you could always cut your legs off and carry them with you,” Elmer jokes, moving ahead of him to climb inside.

“An innovative solution, and one which I had not considered myself. I say — no… Wait a moment. You are playing me for a fool, aren’t you?”

“What, me?” he calls back, an echo of amusement in the confined space. “I could never play you for a fool, Nile.”

 

* * *

 

“He was not… _wrong_ , exactly.”

Sylvie stares up into the chasm of sharpened bone, where a fleshless jaw is pulled back and upwards in what _could_ be described as a smile — if one is so desperate as to see a smile between _any_ hollow gap of teeth. She considers for a moment what Elmer might say if he were here: that these beasts truly had felt joy, that these grins had been real _._ Predators delighting in pursuing their prey; he would accept that form of happiness, because he accepts all forms of happiness. Sylvie shakes her head to herself, exasperated with the man’s absurdities even in her own imagination.

She brings her attention back to Phil, face-to-face with the skeleton a few feet away, one index finger pointed to its head and bobbing along the rows of teeth in time to the sweep of her gaze. Denkurō, stood beside her with his arms folded behind his back, is absorbed in reading the informational plaques at the front of the display. He looks over only when she drops her hand.

“How many do you count, Dame Phil?” he asks.

“Fifty-three, Master Denkurō.”

“Fifty-three… and each at least eight inches in length. A rather intimidating picture.”

“Yes.” Phil nods, tilting her head to read over the words again. “And they are capable of biting through large bones with ease.”

Sylvie’s nose crinkles at the thought, and she turns her head away.

“ _Charming_ ,” she lies. “Did Elmer ask you to find all of this out?”

“Oh, um, no,” Phil says, shaking her head. Her meek tone picks up for a moment, “I am keeping Czeslaw company by sharing some ‘fun facts’ with him! I, uh…” — and then drops again — “It does not seem he found that fact _fun_ , though. Hm… how… odd.”

 _Of course he didn’t_ , she thinks, _what sort of kid would find it_ fun _to think about beasts with teeth strong enough to bite through bone?_ But she does not say this, and focuses instead on the part of the situation which bothers her.

“That boy, honestly…” she sighs. “If he wanted to come with us he should have just _said so_.”

She frowns. Had he felt left out? She had assumed he would prefer to stay with his family in Manhattan, but perhaps she should have insisted upon bringing him along.

Phil is quiet for a moment, then she frowns, too, lips pressed thin.

“He said he did not want to trouble us, Mistress Sylvie.”

A brief, bitter laugh escapes her lips.

“As if _he_ could ever trouble us more than _those two_ do.”

Phil just lifts her small shoulders into a shrug. Sylvie does not ask whether this is Czes’ response or her own.

 

* * *

 

Two distinct _thuds_ sound in succession; Nile lands on his feet as deftly as a cat, and just as he straightens his bent knees Elmer comes crashing down unceremoniously. He knocks something out of place when his jaw hits his back, but Nile has a solid stance and manages to remain upright despite the unanticipated — or _somewhat_ anticipated, when he considers Elmer’s character — force. He makes a low grunt of pain, throwing a hand back to rub at the bandaged nape of his neck where a lump swells, searing and sharp, then fades to more poignant nothingness.

He almost begrudges _this_ more than the injury. To feel pain is human; he presses his fingers to the spot and tries to imagine that he still knows the sting, but his imagination fails him and brings a pang to his gut instead. These passing moments are never enough to remind him. He empties his lungs with a long sigh and turns to look down at the other man.

“I say this: get up, Elmer.”

He delivers a soft nudge with the toe of his shoe. Elmer is silent and still, and then he is still but not silent.

“Camphr mrphove right mphno…” His response is muffled by the carpeted floor against which his face is laid flat — temporarily immobilized _and_ temporarily muted, by the looks of things. Nile cannot help thinking that fortune has finally favoured him.

Though, the thought is even shorter-lived than Elmer’s paralysis. How could he view this man’s suffering as a stroke of good fortune? When he earns it himself, it is a different matter — all humans must face the consequences of their actions — but that had not been the case here. How, then, had he allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief? _Relief_ despite the sight of a human in pain — _at_ the sight of a human in pain — his stomach churns upon realizing how well it had settled.

When Elmer begins to recover, he hunches over to offer him a hand. The other rests at the nape of his neck, nails digging into a sore spot that no longer exists, reviving it duller. To feel pain is human. To react to the pain is more so.

“As much as you boil my blood, Elmer, I must say,” — his brow furrows, unseen beneath his mask — “I derive no pleasure from seeing you cause yourself these… needless injuries. It would not hurt you to be more careful.”

“Huh? Aw, Nile.” He has his head ducked, picking off individual specks of carpet fuzz from his shirt, but he pauses to turn his chin up and face Nile when he speaks. His lips curl dangerously: a grin drawn out too tight across his features to be anything but unnerving. “You’re _worried_ about me. Worried! _Gee,_ I don’t know what to say! I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

Nile’s grip is stiff when he pulls Elmer to his feet — with tension more than anger.

“What do you mean to insinuate? That I am some _villain_? That I do not _care_ if one of my companions comes in harm’s way?” He frees his hand and drops his arm to his side. He speaks evenly, “What do you take me for, Elmer? A heartless monster? I say this: what do you take me f—”

“Hey, hey! Hey, that’s not what I meant,” he laughs, waving his hand dismissively. “Come on now, Nile, how long have I known you? You think I could honestly believe you’re a _heartless monster_? ‘Course I don’t! It’d be pretty hypocritical of me to pass that judgment based on whether or not you worry about me, anyway, right? It’s not like I worry much but anyone else, ‘long as they’re smiling, and I’m still — actually, maybe that’s not a great comparison. I guess people _do_ consider me a heartless monster, thinking about it!”

“I say this: your self-awareness is truly horrifying.”

“Maybe so, but anyway.” He shrugs. “All I meant was I didn’t think I’d hear you _say_ you’re worried. Out loud, you know?”

“Hm,” Nile huffs. “I say this: you have heard it now. Stop dwelling on it and put the knowledge to use. Improving upon your carelessness shall benefit us both.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll look before I jump next time, yeah? But you’ve got to promise you’ll be smiling under your mask. Deal?”

It takes a moment, but he nods.

 

The room they have landed in is a small one — a storage area, judging by the stacks of boxes — lit by an ugly fluorescent light above them. On the way out they make note of an ‘Emplyees Only’ sign.

“I say this: do you suppose they caught us on camera?”

“I dunno. Do you think they care?”

Nile considers for a moment, and decides only that it does not matter either way. He has dealt with worse than museum security guards in his lifetime. He would _prefer_ to avoid the conflict, of course — _of course_ he would. He is restless from the concern, he decides, and not from the anticipation; his pulse races in his throat but he ignores it.

“I say this: it is of little consequence. Now, where shall we begin our search?”

“Hm, _wellll_.” Elmer taps his chin. “I think Phil was looking forward to that special exhibit on mammoths. That’d be a good place to start — but, hey, as long as we’re here it’d be a shame to skip the mummies! It’s no rush, right?”

 _The mummies?_ He stops to look around himself. Surely enough, the glass cabinets against the walls display relics of ancient Egypt — mummies, as Elmer says, among other things. Somehow he thinks he ought to have noticed — _sensed_ it, the overwhelming presence of death. It ought to have crept up on him hauntingly; he ought to feel… something. Sobreity, fear, grief — yet he feels nothing, nothing but the nothingness itself. Nothing but the _absence_ and the ache of it.

“Do you not find these displays to be unnerving, Elmer? No, perhaps — saddening?”

When he turns his gaze back, the man is grinning. 

“Nah, that’d just be silly! What’s the use in getting sad over the dead? It won’t bring them back. I reckon we should be happy about the dead! We should laugh in their memory! Hahaa —”

“I say this, Elmer: you are everything I fear our kind becoming,” he sighs.

“I thought that way a long time before I became immortal, so don’t worry about that,” Elmer laughs. “I just don’t see a point in feeling that way. It’s not like being upset is going to make them smile! _Oh_! Wait! Unless they’re like the mummies in the movies and they rise from the dead! That’d be great!” There is a bounce in his step now. “I could make them smile all the way into the afterlife. Wow, I wish —”

He is cut off when Nile grabs the back of his collar and jerks him back.

“Do not,” he says slowly, “I say this: do not disrespect the dead by spewing such… _absurdities_ in their final resting place.”

There is a thoughtful quiet from Elmer; he catches him peer back over his shoulder at him, eyes wide, no doubt trying to ascertain what lays beneath his mask. He nods, in the end.

“Right. — Sorry about that.”

He lets the subject drop after this, and Nile lets _him_ drop. He begins mumbling something about how he should smile, _since he apologized and all_. Nile reminds himself to stop listening. He steps over to the nearest display with Elmer still blabbering at his heel, and he furrows his brow, not at his words.

“I say this: it is always strange,” he remarks, hunched over to look into the display box, where small statues sit carved of wood and painted in pigments once bright, now faded. “To see fragments of my home in places they do not belong.”

His fingers tap against the plastic casing, and he recalls, “The man who raised me collected such things in his academic pursuits, too — hm. I say this: perhaps I am the strange one, to think it strange when I have traveled further from my point of origin than even they have.”

Elmer’s reflection in the glass grins wide, and his own mask does not change.

“I don’t know about all that _strange or not strange_ business, but it’s pretty cool, right? The mummies, I mean.”

Nile lets out a sigh. “For a man who claims to care only for happiness, you are in possession of unfathomably morbid curiosities.”

“I don’t know if I think it _is_ morbid,” Elmer says, shrugging his shoulders. “Sure, they’re _dead_ , but they’re not… uh,” he narrows his eyes, leaning forward to rest his elbow on the display. “It’s not _about_ them being dead. It’s the opposite! It’s about immortality.”

He bolts upright again to land his hand against the heading written across the plaque, and he recites it aloud, “’Preparing for eternity’, right? That’s what it’s about. Whether or not it really works, when they did this stuff they were thinking _‘what can we do to make these people happy for the rest of eternity?’_ , and then they tried everything they could think of. Come on, that’s not morbid. I think it’s great!”

Nile stares at him for a long moment before lowering his head to read the words himself. “Preparing for eternity,” he scoffs. “I say this: no mortal man knows the meaning of it.”

He turns sharply to continue down the hall, pressing his mask to his face.

“Maybe not, but _they_ sure do!” Elmer gestures around them with enthusiasm. “You wouldn’t think about what some of these guys went through just looking at them. I read that in some cultures they preserve their sacrifices like this, you know? They could've gotten their head cracked open or their skin torn off, or —”

“You tell me nothing I do not already know,” Nile mutters, folding his arms over his chest. “And I say this, Elmer: you truly _are_ being grim now.”

“I’m not! I’m not,” he protests, shaking his head. “I’m not being _grim_. You just don’t understand what I’m saying. All of that could have happened, and they’re still here, thousands of years later. Sure, that’s not going to _fix_ any of those things — they’re going to have their dents and their scars, but they’re still — they get saved. That’s it. They get saved as they are, even though they’re… Nevermind, that’s not the point. That’s not the _point_.”

He lets out a breath, his brow creased just slightly, and then his expression relaxes.

“People look at them and they’re amazed, right? That they’ve survived the way they have, whether they’re still human or not — because that doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe they’re human, maybe they’re something _more_ than human! Maybe they’re just dead. None of that matters,” he pauses to beam through the glass at an adult mummy. Nile nearly shudders at the callous of him, easy smile and resting eyes; he is a more frightening sight than any corpse _could_ be. “I guess some people probably _do_ feel a tad unnerved when they look at them, but _most_ people, most people realize it’s incredible that they can see them like this. And then they smile! I want to think they smile, once they realize that.”

“I say this: you _always_ want to think they smile.”

“Yep! Of course! But that’s not what I’m getting at. I want to think they can _smile_ when they see them like this, because in spite of everything, dents and scars and all, that means they did it, you know? They preserved them for eternity. They preserved their happiness, don’t you think? They saved their smiles, and even if they’re not human any more, even if they’re dead, _those_ _smiles_ are immortal.”

He watches him for a moment longer. His face does not shift in the slightest, and Nile wonders how it might compare to his own; he grows uneasy with the unwavering line of his mouth, turning face to the display.

“You are an absurd man,” he mutters. Under his nose the mummy lays, more still and cold and ancient than they are. He is ensnared by the sight, met with an expression as hollow and undying as his must be. He touches the cloth wrapping his own neck and speaks in a low voice, “But I say this: you are correct in one sense. It is the truest vision of immortality I have laid eyes on.”

 

There is a stutter and _click_. Nile reacts a beat too late, glancing over in time to see Elmer lower his phone from where it had been outstretched above him and drop his hand from the peace sign it had been raised in. He begins typing onto the screen, grinning to himself in a way that sets Nile seething. He yanks his arm back.

“Erase that picture at once.”

He is a background presence in Elmer’s gleeful camerawork, but combined with the childish caption — a joke about mummies, he is not surprised to find — it ruffles his feathers. He restrains himself from crushing the device, only barely.

“Don’t worry! I’m only gonna send it to Huey.”

“I say this, Elmer: if you send that to Huey Laforet, you will regret the day you were born.”

“ _Well_ , if you show me a smile, maybe I’ll consider —”

“Elmer C. Albatross, I shall give you three seconds to put that damnable phone down. No, I say this: two seconds.”

“See, the thing is, I think he’ll have a good laugh about it if I send it, and I can’t see _your_ expression anyway, so I th—”

Both the phone and the air in his lungs are promptly knocked halfway across the room when Nile lands a forceful punch to his chest.

 

* * *

 

“Is it true that we are going to become extinct, Mistress Sylvie?”

Phil looks at the words for a long time before she asks the question. Through the exhibit she had counted every bone in every fossil, diligently reporting her findings to Denkurō— nine-hundred and eighty-five in the triceratops alone, she had told him, with a certain energy in her quiet voice — but now she stands small and lost beneath the looming poster and its forewarnings. When she speaks, Sylvie frowns and lays a gentle hand on the top of her head.

“Of course not, Phil. It took a meteor to wipe the dinosaurs out. It doesn’t just happen out of nowhere,” she assures, ruffling the hair beneath her fingers. Phil nods slowly, processing this notion as the comfort it should be.

“To be sure… and yet, mankind seems at times to _dare_ history to repeat itself,” Denkurō murmurs. He wears a solemn expression, his lips pulled into a taut, straight line. Sylvie smiles lopsided to see it, quirking a thin eyebrow.

“And there I was thinking _I_ was the most optimistic one of us.” Her pretty voice drips with sarcasm. He looks abashed and clears his throat with a cough.

“This one apologizes, Dame Sylvie. It is a thought this one would prefer not to dwell on, but one which cannot be avoided easily,” he lets out a slow breath, folding his arms in front of him. “The destruction that is made possible by today’s weapons… it is absolute.”

Her amusement dwindles, features falling flat and colourless. She is quiet, and quiet for longer than she would be if she intended to respond.

“This one lived in a time in which human nature was to burn that which one hates,” he attempts to clarify, narrowing his eyes in thought. “And this one awoke in a time of nation pitted against nation in their hatred, with weapons capable of burning more than ever before. Perhaps it _is_ the fate of our world to die in a heartbeat — far faster than even the dinosaurs.”

“At least _we_ would survive it,” with her words come the beginning of a laugh, clipped when Phil’s hand finds hers. _They_ would survive, but not _all_ of them. She squeezes tightly, and does not look down at her.

“This one supposes, Dame Sylvie, that it is our privilege and our obligation to survive such a thing,” he says, and rests his arms at his sides, resigned. “As is the promise of eternal life, and our promise in return.”

“It’s a bit gloomy,” she remarks, and begins to walk. Walls of endangered animals flicker in her peripherals. “To think we might live to see the world as we know it put on display. Spoken about like it’s a… long forgotten story.”

“This one apologizes for the unpleasantry, Dame —”

“No,” she stops him, smiling distantly. “No, it’s fine.”

Phil strays a bit to the right and she is tugged along without effort.

“The world as _I_ knew it ended a long time ago, Denkurō.” She shrugs, as though this will hide the tension rising in her shoulders. “It can’t possibly hurt more the second time.”

He knits his brow, and she imagines what has him pensive: cold sea and long darkness, a more physical rendition of the apocalypse she has known. Phil is admiring the spiral of an ammonite fossil, and abandons her grip to trace the pattern onto the glass.

“This one understands well,” he says at last. “It seems that the world begins and ends again as it pleases. Perhaps it is foolish to concern oneself with it. After all,” — his lips turn up, just barely — “’Twould not be unthinkable that had any of the dinosaurs survived their kind, they might have been able to find a new life in _this_ world.”

“Lucky dinosaurs,” she replies, and raises him a drier smile.

“Very lucky dinosaurs,” he agrees.

“Master Elmer’s lucky dinosaur is the Tryanosaurus Rex,” Phil half-mumbles. She must have stopped fully listening at some point. Sylvie cannot blame her; no doubt her conversation with Czes is more lively.

“Of course it is,” she mutters, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

“And what might yours be, Dame Phil?”

“Um, hmm…” She tilts her head. “I like the p… uh, puter —”

“The pterodactyl, Dame Phil?”

“Yes, Master Denkurō. Thank you,” she says, nodding, then turning her head up with a curious expression. “Mistress Sylvie, which is _your_ favourite?”

Sylvie’s hand flies to her chest, taken aback by the question.

“My favourite?” she repeats, and scoffs, “They’re _all_ ugly if you ask me.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey now! Hey, don’t cry! What if I buy it for you? Whaddaya say? ‘Long as your parents are alright with that, I mean. Wouldn’t want them frowning too —”

They find Elmer in the gift shop crouched beside a child with red, puffy eyes who clutches a plastic dinosaur as though she is clinging onto it for life. It is Denkurō who spots him first, but by the time he opens his mouth to alert the others he is already a blur rushing towards them at top speed.

“There you are! What took you so long?” he asks, slinging his arm around his shoulder. A few feet away the girl sniffles. He glances over his shoulder to give her a smile and a thumbs up — “Won’t be a minute! Just got some catching up to do.”

“Master Elmer, as this one recalls ‘twas yourself and Master Nile who took their time dawdling,” sighs Denkurō, stiffening in discomfort.

“What’s wrong with dawdling?”

“This one did not mean to imply there was a wrongdoing, only that —”

“You know what I found while I was dawdling?” — he grins — “The mammoth! I found the mammoth! And you know what, Den-Den? He was frozen in ice, just like you!”

“Master Elmer,” he starts, and is cut off with haste.

“You should go say hi,” he declares, gesturing broadly. “Maybe he’s a friend of yours!”

“’Twould be unlikely, Master Elmer. After all, this one is no more than twenty years your elder,” Denkurō frowns, shrugging off Elmer’s arm and stepping aside. “Being frozen in ice did not send this one back in time.”

“Elmer…”

Sylvie, who had been rifling through a container of tumbled stones, disinterested in the man’s reappearance, looks over suddenly with squinted eyes.

“Where’s Nile?”

“Oh, right.” His grin goes sheepish, and he combs his hair back with his hand. “Well, see, I took this picture of him, and I guess it made him kinda angry.”

“Where is he _now_?” Sylvie says again, wrapping her arms around herself.

“He may have gotten into a little bit of trouble. But it wasn’t my fault!” He throws his arms up in the air. “I tried to tell them I didn’t mind that he hit me, but they wouldn’t listen.”

“ _They_ , Master Elmer?” Denkurō presses.

“Oh, just some security guards. They took him away for a chat — but really, it’s nothing to worry about! You can all cheer up now!”

“A chat?” says Sylvie through pursed lips. She pinches the bridge of her nose between her index finger and thumb, closing her eyes.

“Yep, a chat. Just a chat! And I said I’d wait for him, so in the meantime I figured I’d —” He spins around in that moment to point out the child to whom he had been offering his help, only to find an empty space where she had stood. He crinkles his nose, then laughs. “Huh. Nevermind! I’ll just have to find something else to do. Should be easy now you’re here!”

He laughs and laughs. Denkurō exchanges a glance with Sylvie; while they mull over the situation, Elmer sweeps past them to give Phil a lift up onto his back.

“C’mon,” he shouts, already walking fast away from where they stand. “Let’s go say hi to the mammoth!”

“ _How long_ are we waiting for?” Sylvie demands, matching his pace with fast, purposeful strides. “Elmer! We’ll miss the next train.”

 

But Elmer only insists once again that they have nothing to worry about —

And looking down at the world from over his shoulder, Phil does not find it difficult to believe him. She rests her head against the fabric of his coat, and though it is still damp and cold from the rain, she smiles.

 

* * *

 

“Listen —”

The voice crackles on the old landline’s speaker. Nile sits unmoving across from the same security guard he had had a run-in with earlier that day. She had stopped threatening him with arrest when he had brought up his acquaintanceship in the FBI, and had stopped glaring at him when her plan to call his bluff had ended in his favour. She is bemused, more than anything, listening and barely responding to the short-tempered man on the other end of the phone.

“He’s a reckless bastard but he’s not a threat. Well, not to civillians, anyway. Worst you’ve got to worry about is public property damage, so do all of us a favour and just — tell him to fuck off, would you?”

“Tell him to…”

“You know damn well what I said. Tell him to fuck off with his merry band of inconsiderate assholes. I don’t have time for their shit today.”

There’s a very short silence. She looks up and furrows her brow.

“He said to —”

“I say this: I heard,” mutters Nile.

“He… _heard_? You got me on fucking speaker phone?! Damn it,” he groans. “Whatever. Is Tōgō there with you? How’s he doing?”

“He is well, to my knowledge.”

“Good to hear it,” — there is a beat, and then — “You can fuck off now.”

 

* * *

 

In the backroom of the Alveare, Phil and Czes sit cross-legged on the floor playing cards.

“What’s happening now?” Czes asks. It is an idle curiosity, a question that comes up every now and then, when he is bored or when she looks like she is far away, or when he loses a round of Go Fish and does not want to dwell on it.

“I apologize, Master Czes. I am asleep,” she mumbles. He inquires about sevens. She shakes her head and he plucks a card out of the pile between them.

“You can stay awake while she’s asleep?” He quirks an eyebrow. She asks for kings. He forfeits one.

“No, I, uh… yes, but in this case it is more accurate to say I am _going_ to sleep,” she explains, thumbing through her hand. "I can hear Sylvie’s singing. It’s a very old song, I think, but it is not like the ones they sang in the village. It sounds like… Italian, or Spanish, maybe. It’s… um, it’s a beautiful song."

Czes smiles thinly as she lays down a set.

“How does it go?”

She considers for a moment, then she closes her eyes --- and she sings.

 

* * *

 

Sylvie is right — they miss the train.

She chides Elmer for it until Elmer chides her for her frown, then she shakes her head and smiles with bitter amusement and they are both halfway content.

There is nothing that can be done now, after all, save for waiting and smiling.

The station is an endless tunnel of dull gray and white. When the grip of Phil’s arms, looped around Elmer’s neck, starts to lose out to her exhaustion, he sets her down. She sits with Sylvie on a metal bench and lays her head against her arm. It is not comfortable, but she is overtired from the long day, and sleep welcomes her.

Nile paces the platform. Three steps behind him, Elmer is a more careless reflection, following the same steps but letting them teeter on the edge, threatening to fall with every thud (but not _threatening_ , only considering — weighing out the option. Perhaps they would laugh, if he tripped. Perhaps they would smile.) Beside Sylvie on her other side, Denkurō watches them, wary, chin on the palm of his hand and back bent forward; if they began to argue, he might step in to stop them, but they do not argue. They walk the solid black line back and forth, Elmer rambling and Nile silent.

At some point, Sylvie begins to hum, faintly, for the benefit of Phil, breathing softly next to her.

“What’s that one called, Sylvie?” Elmer shouts, balancing precariously with one leg dangling over the tracks. If a train passed by in that instant he would lose a limb; if it passed by again he would get it back. Sylvie does not bat an eyelash.

“You know, Elmer,” she lets out a slow breath. “I can’t recall the name.”

Laughter. His balance tips, but fortune decides the side. He lands on the platform roughly and laughs more — more loudly, more brightly. More.

“Sing it for us properly! Maybe I’ll remember.”

“As though I’d trust _you_ to remember anything,” Sylvie says with a huff.

“Maybe I will! And wouldn’t it make you happier, anyway? If you sang it, I mean.” He grins. “I think it’d make you smile.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but a melody comes out instead.

“Hmm…” Elmer hums, thoughtful. He gets to his feet; his pant legs are streaked with dust, and he lifts one knee after the other to brush them down. “Sounds familiar, but I can’t quiet place it.” He taps his chin. “Who knows? Maybe my parents sang it to me once — I don’t remember that, but I guess all parents sing their children lullabies, right? Even mine.”

Sylvie falls silent. Denkurō sits upright and turns his head.

“It was beautiful, Dame Sylvie.”

“I say this: it was not unpleasant to the ears,” Nile concurs. His footsteps slow to a stop in a moment of appreciative stillness.

“Thank you,” she says quietly. “I used to sing it for Gretto, back when…”

There is a complicated ache in her chest. She thinks of Gretto, teary eyes and swelling bruises; she thinks of her hands in his hair and her voice soothing wounds she could not _heal_. She tilts her head back until it rests against the cold brick and stares up at the high ceiling. 

She thinks of Phil, then, nestled against her; she thinks of Czes, and Elmer, and Nile and Denkurō and Maiza. She thinks of how natural it feels to sing again now that has people to hear it — not nameless, anonymous audience members, but _friends_.

She thinks of history and how humanity dares it to repeat itself, even knowing what will come in the end. She thinks of dinosaurs outliving their kind; lost in the modern world, but always finding new places to be lost _in_.

She thinks of many things, and she aches in a complicated way, and she smiles.

“To be honest, I don’t even recall when I learned it, or who taught me,” she admits. “I suppose it’s something I’ve always known.”

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I'm aware it would not be this easy to break into the Smithsonian, but… I could not for the life of me find any substantial information for actual break-ins, and I am a simple man of simple means. Suspend your disbelief for me, if you would.


End file.
